author's note: For Phoenix Rising's Paintbrush and Quill Society. The Paintbrush to my Quill is here, "Runes" by spoonjosh. The Latin is the best I can do from online translators. Those translations are at the end. Many, many thanks to Abigail, Anne and Annie for the betas and encouragement.
She stood under the spray of the shower, letting the hottest water she could tolerate attempt to wash away the dregs of his latest nightmare; that it also allowed her to cry in relative silence was a thankful side-effect.
She knew his nightmares were growing worse, but she didn't have any idea what to do about it. Not knowing what to do sometimes frightened her just as much as his nightmares. She'd always been able to think things through, to plot and plan, but that wasn't going to work this time. The last time she'd attempted to intervene in his nightmare, he'd accidentally broken her nose. He was horrified and extremely apologetic once he woke and realized what he'd done. He healed it for her, but the incident had reinforced the realization that she might be out of her depth.
Somehow, that idea frightened her just as much as the nightmares themselves.
"Good morning, Mrs. Potter," Harry said as he entered the shower behind her.
She tilted her head to the side, allowing him to kiss her neck. "Good morning to you, Mr. Potter."
"I haven't gotten used to that yet," he murmured.
"It's been two years," she scoffed.
He turned her around with a laugh. "And it will be twenty more before I'm used to it." He pulled her closer. "Now hush and let me wish you a good morning."
Hermione Potter wasn't used to being indecisive but the entire situation with Harry worried her more than she'd ever let him see. In many ways, he was still the oblivious teenager she'd originally fallen in love with since he hadn't made mention of the glamour charms she'd been using to hid her sleeplessness. Or, she noted ruefully, he's noticed but chosen discretion and not mentioned it.
A knock at the door startled her into spilling her inkwell onto the floor. Cursing silently to herself, she waved her wand to clean the mess.
Ron Weasley settled himself in the chair across the desk from her, resting his cane against the side. With a grin, he said, "I should have known you were lost in thought." When she raised her eyebrows in question, he added, "You had your library face on."
"My 'library face'?"
He nodded. "The one that always told Harry and I to stay far away if we didn't want to be treated like errand boys while being lectured about homework."
Her blush rivaled his hair. She knew exactly what he was talking about. That particular behavior had worsened during their Horcrux hunt while they spent many hours poring over old tomes.
Ron, however, just waved it off. "As long as I don't have to lug around dusty books weighing a stone, I'm not worried." He narrowed his eyes and leaved forward. "Unless you're planning to make us read Hogwarts, A History."
She laughed, the old joke dispelling some of her tension. "No, not plotting that."
"Good," he said, settling more firmly in the chair. "What's wrong?"
It took a good portion of her control not to cry again at his question. "What do you mean?"
He glared at her deliberate ignorance. "Hermione, you look like shite."
She didn't chastise him for cursing, which was surprising enough, but broke down in tears instead. Ron muttered something under his breath, rose to limp around the desk and gathered her close. She sobbed on his shoulder, both horrified at the loss of control and comforted by the sympathy.
Once she had cried her pent-up tears, Ron released her and hobbled back to the chair. He allowed her time to dry her face and renew her glamour charms.
"Is he getting worse?" Ron asked, concern lacing the softly-spoken question.
She sighed heavily, answering only after refreshing the locking and privacy charms on the door. "The nightmares are every night now. The worst part is that he doesn't remember them at all come morning. He honestly has no idea why I'm not sleeping. He hasn't even noticed the glamour charms."
Ron leaned forward, elbows on his knees, hands dangling loosely before him. "He's usually the first to notice." Silence stretched comfortably between them before Ron asked, "Has he talked again during any of these nightmares?"
She shoved a hand in her hair, horrified to feel tears in her eyes yet again. I really need sleep before I turn into a gibbering mass. Ron's words brought some of her worst fears to the forefront, though, churning her stomach with anxiety as the memory of three weeks ago suddenly became fresh in her mind again, overlain with the nightmare of last night.
Three weeks ago, Hermione had been awakened from sleep by Harry shouting in Parseltongue. The only word he'd said in English was Crucio. He hadn't spoken Parseltongue since killing Voldemort.
"He was cursing people again last night," she admitted softly. "Including the Killing Curse."
Ron stare incredulously at her. "Bloody hell."
"I don't know what to do, Ron. I tried recording him, but his magic always disables whatever method I try."
"Hermione, I'm at a loss. I've tried talking to him about it, but he just looks at me blankly and changes the subject." Dragging his hands over his face, he settled back once again. "You really need to get some sleep, though. Why don't you take an overnight and use a strong sleeping potion? I'll stay with him, call it catching up, just the boys."
She smiled, grateful and weary, before accepting his offer.
By May, Harry was barely sleeping between the nightmares, though he didn't realize it. Hermione was running out of glamour charms to hide the fact she spent most nights making sure Harry didn't hurt himself rather than sleeping.
It was in this atmosphere that Ron took breakfast with them one Saturday. Harry answered the door, surprised to see Ron, but inviting him inside nonetheless.
After Hermione served and was seated, Harry turned to Ron. "To what do we owe the honor?"
Hermione stifled a gasp at Harry's sarcastic tone. She briefly met Ron's eyes and was mollified slightly by the implacability there.
Ron sipped his tea, then answered, "I stopped by to try to talk some sense into you."
The dishes rattled ominously once, then stilled.
"Sense?" Harry growled. He glared at Hermione, but she met his gaze steadily despite her nerves.
This was Harry. Not only was he her husband, but he was one of her best friends. So why was she afraid of that look in his eye?
Ron set his teacup down with deliberate precision. "Yes, sense. People are afraid to be around you, Harry."
"That's nothing new," he scoffed. Shoving back from the table, he stood and glared at Ron and Hermione. "Were the two of you put up to this?"
Hermione quailed before him, too exhausted to be angry, but Ron held his ground. "No." He paused, turning to Hermione. "Only if you count concern for both my best friends being put up to something."
"Both?"
Before Hermione could block it, Ron cast Finite Incantatem on her glamour. Harry and Ron both gasped at her appearance. She had dark circles under her eyes, enough to give her a vaguely raccoon-like look. Her skin was sallow, cheeks hollowed and eyes bloodshot.
"Did you notice the glamour, Harry?" Ron asked quietly. "Did you know the toll your nightmares are taking on Hermione?"
Harry looked stricken, eyes wide from horror with a bit of self-loathing mixed in, Hermione thought. He moved toward her, shoving his chair out of the way violently enough to send it crashing against the wall. Kneeling before her, he took her hands in his, meeting her eyes.
"I'm so sorry," he whispered, resting his head in her lap.
Stroking Harry's hair absent-mindedly, Hermione looked over at Ron. He was entirely too smug for her liking. The idea of sticking her tongue out at him passed through her mind, but she dismissed it as childish.
"Will you -" she began, stopping suddenly to clear her throat of the lump in it. "Will you go to therapy?"
He looked up slowly. The expression in his eyes was unreadable. At last, he nodded and whispered, "Yes."
The following Friday, as Hermione was fixing dinner, Harry stormed into the house. It seemed the walls themselves vibrated with his anger.
She shouted involuntarily in startlement when he spun her away from the stove to pin her against the cabinet door.
"I tried it your way," he growled.
She trembled slightly. His magic fairly crackled around him and it scared her.
"My way?" she whispered.
"Therapy." He spat the word like an epithet. "Everyone seems to already know about the bloody Boy Who Lived and I'm not giving them more ammunition."
With that, he released her and stormed back out the front door. He left it open this time. She ran to catch him. She got to the door in time to hear his near-deafening crack of Apparition. Shock left her frozen for a moment, but when she recovered, she closed the door slowly. When it snicked shut, she slid to the floor and cried while dinner burned in the kitchen.
Things came to a head for Hermione when she spontaneously broke into inconsolable tears during a staff meeting at the Ministry. Her supervisor told her to go home and return after she recovered from whatever feminine ailment she was suffering from. She returned to her office, cleaned it out and left her resignation letter on his desk in the form of a Howler.
Harry found her sitting at their dining table methodically shredding her research notes from her work.
She barely noticed as he took a seat across from her. She looked up when he covered her hands.
"What's wrong?" he asked softly.
"My boss is an arse and I quit." Harry blinked and was silent. "No opinion?"
"Just surprised," he replied somewhat cautiously. "Why did you quit?"
"My boss is an arse," she repeated viciously. "If I could get away with hexing him, I would."
Harry released her hands, sitting back in his chair. "I see."
She narrowed her eyes and spat, "Men."
He stared silently. When she said nothing further, he rose to move around the table. Sliding behind her, he rested his hands on her shoulders. Annoyance and anger so filled her that the last thing she wanted was to be touched by anyone.
She shoved his hands off her, turning around and snarling, "Just don't touch me right now."
Sudden tension filled the room like static electricity before a lightning strike. Hermione fought the urge to back away from Harry, her fight-or-flight primal instinct nearly overwhelming. She grit her teeth, not moving from her seat despite the panic welling inside her.
With something near a growl, Harry whipped his wand from its holster, blew the back door into the rear garden and stormed out. His crack of Apparition sounded like a gunshot.
Hermione gripped the edge of the table, panting, fighting both tears and panic. She'd never meant to drive him away; she just was in an utterly foul mood and did not want to be touched after her former boss's sexist comments.
It took nearly an hour before she felt calm enough to move.
Five minutes after that she jumped up and ran to their room. There, on the dresser, was his wand. The holly and phoenix feather wand lay there innocently, oblivious to what its presence meant.
Nausea welled inside her. She barely made it to the toilet before vomiting. She wouldn't be able to confirm her belief until Harry returned, but she thought that the wand he blasted the door with had been Voldemort's.
Ron's head appeared in the Floo around midnight. He called her name a half-dozen times before she woke from her fitful nap on the sofa.
"Hermione, how long has he had a tattoo?" Ron asked once she answered his call.
She wiped sleep from her eyes. "What tattoo?"
She couldn't be sure, but thought he paled. "The tattoo on his back."
"He doesn't have a tattoo on his back," she protested.
Ron met her eyes. "Maybe you should come through." He pulled his head from the fire. Swallowing her nervousness, she grabbed Floo powder, called for Ron's flat and stepped through.
She gasped at the sight before her. Harry lay on his stomach on Ron's living room rug. A tattoo of a sinuous snake wrapped in runes started at the base of his spine and curled upward until it covered nearly half his back. Dropping to her knees beside him, her hands fluttered useless above him. Given everything, she was reluctant to touch him. The idea she didn't want to touch Harry horrified her almost as much as the sight of that tattoo.
"He...he didn't have that last month." She would have noticed it last month since it was the last time they'd made love.
"He has it now," Ron said needlessly. "And it's evil."
She looked up sharply. The fire, the only light in the room, cast his features in harsh relief, making him all cheekbones and blue eyes.
"How can you tell?" she whispered, eyes returning to Harry. He was breathing shallowly as if in pain.
"Can't you feel it?" Ron answered, astonished.
"No." The need to help her husband was strong, but she had no idea where to start. If she'd begun when he first started to act strangely, she might have had a chance, but she didn't know what to do then and she was floundering now.
Ron sank onto the sofa. His cane fell to the floor, the sound echoing in the silence between them.
Finally, he said with dawning horror, "You really can't feel it?" She shook her head. "It must have been gradual and you're used to it."
Harry gasped but didn't otherwise move.
"What's wrong with him?" she asked.
She hadn't been expecting an answer, so she was startled when Ron spoke.
"I Stunned him."
Her head shot up. Their eyes met, shock in hers, hurt in his. Ron looked away first.
Defensively, he added, "He was going to attack me." He shifted to pull a wand from his pocket. "With this," he continued, handing it to her.
Hermione took the wand, horror filling her as well when her fears were confirmed. It was Voldemort's wand. She sank completely to the floor, unable to wrap her mind around what was happening.
"Hermione, what's going on?" Ron asked quietly.
She looked up, meeting his eyes again. "I...I don't know, Ron. He went to therapy but left after half a session. He's angry all the time and he never used to be that way." She dropped Voldemort's wand and shoved her hands through her hair. "I don't know what to do. Everything I've tried hasn't worked. I've done research, but there doesn't seem to be any explanation for his behavior, for any of this."
She barely noticed Ron climbing down onto the floor until he was right next to her. Without a word, he wrapped his arms around her, holding her until she finally began to cry. He still said nothing, just held her. She tried not to think about how she'd rather it be Harry holding her.
When her bout of tears ended, she pulled back. With trembling hands, she scrubbed her face before standing up. She helped Ron back to the sofa.
Ron sighed heavily. "When did this start?"
Hermione looked up, her focus blurred. "When did what start?"
A faint smile touched Ron's mouth. "The nightmares, the odd behavior, any of it."
Settling once more on the floor with her feet underneath her, she kept her eyes on Harry. "The nightmares began a little less than six months ago, around Christmas. The odd behavior, the unreasonable anger, was a couple months after that. I...I think he started using V-Voldemort's wand two weeks ago."
She watched Harry's breathing with a sick sensation in her stomach. Whatever was going on was beyond her comprehension and it galled her to admit that.
She took a deep breath before resting her hands on his back. A terrible sense of evil radiated upward through her palms from the tattoo, bringing with it a heated nausea firing into her stomach. With a terrified gasp, she pulled her hands away from Harry.
"You're right," she said in a breathless whisper.
Ron, to his credit, didn't gloat at her admission.
She settled back onto her heels again. She felt wrung dry at the gamut of emotions she'd been run through in the twenty-four hours previous. With another deep breath, she looked up at Ron.
"What do we do now?"
"I don't know," Ron answered, sympathy threading his voice.
Hermione pulled her wand, pointed it at Harry, and whispered, "Rennervate."
Harry startled violently with the removal of the stunning charm. He took a brief look side-to-side before straightening. Sitting with his back to the sofa, his eyes shot between Hermione and Ron accusingly. He watched with a narrowed gaze as Hermione put her wand away.
"What's going on?" he finally asked, voice low and tight.
"You tried to hex Ron," Hermione answered softly.
Harry shook his head. Drawing his knees up, he whispered, "No." When neither Ron nor Hermione said anything, his eyes shot to Ron. "Tell me I didn't."
Ron sighed heavily. Shoving a hand through his hair, he answered, "I wish I could."
Harry paled further. Hermione noticed the small goose bumps along his arms but made no move to offer a blanket.
"What's happening to me?" Harry murmured, sounding for all the world like a lost little boy. He buried his face in his upraised knees as Ron and Hermione looked at each other, just as lost.
Harry seemed to get better after that night. He began using his own wand once again, never seeking or asking about Voldemort's wand. Hermione had placed the yew wand inside a warded box after the wand refused to be broken. Two days later, she buried the box in a hole and covered it with concrete.
Harry also began interacting with their friends again. He and Hermione went out several times to share drinks or dinner with people they knew from school. Sometimes those evenings were only with Ron, sometimes with Ron and his latest date. The nights they spent time alone were the ones that ended in their bed again, reminding her of when they were first married.
It was there, in their bed, that Hermione discovered that the tattoo remained on Harry's back, just as evil as it had been before.
And it was growing at the same time his scar was fading.
Hermione knew it couldn't last. Living with the expectation of doom around the corner was taking its toll. Her sleep deteriorated once again and she began losing weight, causing hollows in her cheeks.
Every morning before he woke, she checked Harry's scar and, when she could without waking him, the tattoo. His scar was still fading; she thought it would be gone by his birthday. The tattoo, on the other hand, grew up his back, expanding and spreading like a tree across his skin. The only hope she held was the emergence of a bird in the tattoo design at the base of his spine. Though still small, the bird looked like a dove.
She began having lunch with Ron nearly every day, more to keep her sanity than anything else. She felt as if the Sword of Damocles hung over her head, awaiting a persistent glimmer of happiness from her to fall and cleave her in two.
She would look back on it as a moment of prescience, one of the few glimmers of divination she would ever have: something bad was coming.
A few days before Harry's birthday, she Apparated home from a birthday party planning lunch with Ron to a dark flat. Thought it was dark, she felt eyes on her, a presence in the room other than herself. A chill swam through her. This is awful, her consciousness told her.
"Good afternoon, Hermione," Harry said, his voice loud in the small room.
As her eyes adjusted to the dark, she saw him crouched between their bedroom door and the wireless. She wasn't sure how she'd missed him the first time since his eyes were glowing like fired emeralds.
"H-Harry?" She was mortified by the way her voice broke on his name.
His responding grin was not reassuring. In fact, it was downright feral and predatory. He uncurled himself from the corner. Straightening, he took three strides toward her to loom over her, threatening without a word.
She said nothing. The menace radiating from him buffeted her like a storm. The fear trickling through her shamed her. This was her husband, not someone to instinctually fear. She couldn't convince her primal brain of that fact, though, and trembled slightly with the effort it took not to run from him.
"Yes, Hermione," he began coldly, "it's your husband."
She licked her lips to mitigate the effects of her nervous near-panting. "Why were you sitting in the dark?" Her voice shook nearly as much as her body.
The glow of his eyes increased as she felt her mental shields battered. Somehow, he was performing non-verbal Legilimency, holding eye contact with that glow. She wanted to break down and cry at the mental assault. Instead, she managed to close her eyes, ending the intrusion.
Harry moved away, the rustle of his clothing giving away the motion. His voice was icy when he said, "You've been meeting with Ron and keeping secrets."
Her eyes shot open, astonishment driving her now. "I've been having lunches with Ron for months."
He turned back to her, fury in every line of his body. "How long have you been cheating on me?"
"What?" The word escaped her on a shocked gasp. "I've never cheated on you!"
He took the three strides to her once again, grasping her upper arms tightly this time. She knew she'd be bruised from his grip, but said nothing about it for fear of his reaction. He bent his head toward hers, his breath on the shell of her ear eliciting a nauseating combination of fear and arousal.
"Don't lie to me, Hermione."
"I'm not!"
His grip tightened even more. Tears sprang to her eyes but she refused to let them fall.
"I know he's wanted you for years, but I stole you from him." Harry released one arm, slid his hand up her back into her hair and tugged. "You're mine, Hermione."
Words froze in her mouth at his tone. She'd known him to be possessive before, usually in the bedroom, but this was different.
His lips descended on hers. Unable to get away, to free herself from his grip, she submitted. At any other time, his kiss would be arousing, driving her to respond in kind, but not now.
Curiosity driving her, she lifted her hands to his shoulder blades. It was like being plugged into a live circuit. Pain, fear and evil permeated her through her palms. It was then that she knew the tattoo had spread. He broke the kiss with a gasp.
She opened her eyes, not having realized she'd closed them. In the dim light, she searched his forehead. The lightning bolt scar he'd had for so long was gone, leaving his forehead smooth. Her hands slipped to her sides. Only then did she realize he'd freed her.
He stepped back. Studying her face, he asked nervously, "Hermione, why are we standing in the dark?"
"What?" she asked breathlessly, startled.
"The dark...why are we in it?"
She resisted the hysterical urge to tell him she thought it was a personal problem. "Harry?" Her voice shook with confusion.
"Yes?"
She said nothing else, launching herself into his arms instead. Startled, he wrapped his arms around her, holding her comfortingly-the exact opposite of his hold five minutes earlier. Trembling, she allowed him to reassure her after he was the one to upset her.
Hours later, after he'd taken her to their room and apologized in many ways, she was able to study him while he slept. Sure enough, the scar was gone, leaving behind only a faintly furrowed brow. She walked around the bed to look at his back. An involuntary gasp escaped her at the sight.
The tattoo covered nearly his entire back. The ink, now a deep black, seemed to pulse malevolently. She shoved a hand into her mouth to keep from crying out. Tears falling silently down her face, her eyes devoured the detail of the tattoo, shoulders to his waist.
It was there, at his waist, at the base of the tattoo, that she found some hope. The bird she'd once thought was a dove was now a phoenix, wings unfurled as if ready to take flight.
From the corner of her eye, she saw a glow. There was barely enough time for her to realize it was coming from the runes in the tattoo before she found herself flung onto her back on the bed. Harry hovered over her, his eyes glowing once again, glowering darkly.
He's possessed by Voldemort, she thought wildly as his mouth descended to bruise hers. Though the conclusion seemed wild, it fit. As his scar disappeared, he became darker; he was able to wield Voldemort's wand; his fits of irrational anger; and, the most worrisome to her mind, the evil contained in the tattoo covering his back.
He gripped her chin tightly, startling her from her thoughts and forcing her to look at him.
"Mine," he hissed.
Swallowing nervously, she replied, "Yours."
She couldn't follow up on her flash of insight for four days. Harry had kept her in their flat during that time, alternating between himself and possession. Ron inadvertently freed her on Harry's birthday by stopping in to fetch Harry for a birthday lunch. Hermione took advantage of the freedom less than two minutes later by Apparating to Hogsmeade in preparation to visit Hogwarts.
The trek up to the castle gave her time to think, something being around Harry and his unpredictable moods lately didn't allow.
She'd contacted Headmistress McGonagall earlier in the summer and found out then that the Headmistress would be at the castle all summer. That thought alone kept Hermione's feet moving toward the school.
Hermione wasn't surprised when she approached the main doors to see the Headmistress awaiting her.
"Mrs. Potter, you look as if you haven't slept in days," the Headmistress chided, her Scots burr heavier with her agitation.
Hermione smiled weakly. "Call me Hermione, please." She sighed. "It's been a long year."
"You may call me Minerva, then," Headmistress McGonagall replied. "Let's go up to my office."
Hermione quashed her horror at calling her beloved former professor by her given name. She thought it an honor bestowed upon few former students and wasn't going to relinquish the privilege with some pointless protest.
They exchanged no words until after the school elves served tea to the two of them. Minerva took one sip before setting the cup down and piercing Hermione with a look. Hermione squirmed in her seat, feeling all of thirteen again.
"To what do I owe the honor of your company, Hermione?" Minerva asked, somehow keeping most of the sarcasm from her voice.
Hermione sighed heavily again, drained her teacup and shoved a hand through her hair. "Actually, I need to talk to you and Professor Dumbledore."
"Aye," Minerva said softly. "I thought you might." She stood and walked to Dumbledore's portrait. Tapping gently on the frame, she called, "Albus, Albus wake up."
Dumbledore's portrait opened his eyes slowly, then stretched as if he were a real person. He smiled benignly at Minerva before turning to Hermione.
"Ah, Ms. Granger," he said with a note of amusement. "I thought I'd be seeing you soon."
Annoyance bubbled in Hermione, but she stifled it. If both Minerva and Dumbledore had expected her, why hadn't she arrived sooner? Or why hadn't Minerva said something to her? Maybe if either had happened, something could have been done to help Harry before he'd gotten to this point. Those thoughts were useless at the moment, though, so she merely smiled tightly.
"It's Mrs. Potter, actually, but you can call me Hermione."
"Yes, I'd forgotten," Dumbledore said softly. "It's Harry you're here about, I presume." She nodded. "How far gone is he?"
"I think...I...totally," she finally managed to say before breaking down in tears.
Minerva said nothing but passed her a tissue. Dumbledore waited.
When Hermione recovered but for a sniffle or two, she narrowed her eyes at Dumbledore. "How did you get Fawkes?"
Quite incongruously, Dumbledore grinned. Minerva huffed and shook her head.
"Several people have asked, Hermione," Dumbledore began, "but few have had a real reason to know. I think you already know the answer, though, else you wouldn't be asking."
Hermione sucked in a breath. It was one of Dumbledore's infamous non-answers, but he was correct-she already had suspicions and was merely looking for confirmation.
Minerva's eyes darted between Hermione and the portrait as neither of them said anything further. After several minutes, she threw up her hands in disgust. "Och! The two of you are enough to try a saint's patience."
"Ah, Minnie, don't be that way," Dumbledore cajoled. Hermione blinked, then goggled at the two of them. Minnie? Dumbledore then grinned widely when Minerva blushed. Hermione shuddered slightly, feeling dirty for even watching the by-play.
"Albus, you tend to annoy me as much in death as in life," Minerva said quietly. "Explain yourself."
With a soft smile still on his lips, Dumbledore said, "Fawkes was created when I killed Grindelwald."
Minerva fell back into her chair with a gasp, one hand flat on her chest, the other flailing impotently at the arm of the chair. Hermione settled back. It was the answer she'd expected.
"Created?" Minerva whispered.
Before Dumbledore could answer, Hermione said, "Fawkes is Grindelwald, isn't he?"
Dumbledore beamed and Hermione could have sworn his painted eyes twinkled.
"But...but how?" Minerva asked, horror lacing her voice.
"His soul was split," Hermione once again answered, thinking out loud. "Dumbledore extracted the Light and killed the Dark."
"One hundred points to Gryffindor, Mrs. Potter," Dumbledore said.
And those words sealed her resolve with a sick sense of horror roiling inside her. She knew what she had to do and hated it and herself for the necessity.
She arrived, unnoticed, at Ron's flat a few minutes late for Harry's birthday party. Nausea still swam within her, making her briefly wonder if she'd get through the night.
Before she could come to a conclusion, Ron spotted her.
"Hermione!" he called, waving frantically to her. Harry stood next to him. She froze, uncertain of his mood. When he smiled, she returned the smile, happy that he was himself tonight.
She crossed the room, exchanging pleasantries with guests as she moved closer to her husband. They'd attended school with most of the guests, though some were acquaintances through Harry's charity work and Hermione's office, despite her not having worked there in weeks.
Harry hugged her tightly, dropping a kiss on her forehead, when she made it to his side. Ron grinned widely and mimicked Harry, but with overstated gestures and a smacking kiss to her forehead. Hermione laughed and lightly smacked Ron's shoulder.
Despite the familiarity of the gestures, the knowledge that she and Ron had done this many times before and it was always strictly platonic, she knew something had gone terribly wrong when Harry tensed. Turning toward him, she dropped the arm she'd had wrapped around his back to her side.
"Harry?" she whispered. Ron took two steps back at her tone.
Harry turned to her. She held her breath until he lifted his eyes; their glow elicited a horrified gasp from her.
"I knew I wasn't wrong," he hissed, grabbing her upper arm. She winced, both at the strength of his grip and because she still bore bruises from his last episode.
"Harry?" Ron began tentatively. "Harry, what are you talking about?"
Harry whipped his head around and all but growled at Ron, "How long? How long have you two been going on behind my back?"
Ron's face fell with shock. Hermione barely noticed the hushed whispers of the guests.
"Harry, I still don't know what you're talking about," Ron answered, voice steady.
Harry shook Hermione almost violently. "I know! I know what you're doing! I just want you to admit it!" His voice rose until he was nearly screaming.
Ron's eyes darted between Hermione and Harry. Shaking his head slowly, he said in a tone more suited to talking someone down from the ledge of a building, "Harry, there is nothing going on between Hermione and me. We're friends. We've not been anything more than that since long before you two got married."
The glow diminished. Hermione thought it was a good sign until Harry turned to her, his eyes narrowed accusingly. His icy tone cut through her more than any Scots winter ever did. "What went on before we were married?"
Hermione tried to tug her arm free, but Harry clutched her even more tightly. Her fingers were growing numb. Biting back tears, she answered calmly, "You know this, Harry. Ron and I dated for a year during school and right after. That's all."
Harry's eyes glowed more fiercely despite having narrowed them even further. Finally, with a huff of disgust, he shoved Hermione away hard enough to send her to the ground. Pulling his wand, he took a dueling stance, his wand pointed at Ron's head.
A low rumbling filled the room, whether it was the guests leaving or emanating from Harry, Hermione couldn't tell.
"Harry!" Hermione sobbed.
His attention still focused on Ron, Harry raised his hand to backhand her. Ron grabbed Harry's upraised wrist and attempted to tug it down. Harry shifted and punched Ron in the jaw, sending him staggering back several steps and his cane crashing to the ground.
It was then that Hermione noticed the wand in Harry's hand. She felt both chilled and sick, a headache pounding in her temples to accompany the pain in her heart.
"Ron! Don't!" she shouted as Ron made to confront Harry again. "That's not Harry's wand!"
Ron briefly met her eyes, horror dawning in his when he realized what wand Harry had in his hand. Hermione didn't know how Harry had found Voldemort's wand again, but had no time to question it.
Harry slowly turned to her. The loathing on his face was something she'd never seen before, not even in their worst fights at school. A sneer lifted one side of his mouth.
"Has the Mudblood figured it out?"
Ron's loud gasp covered Hermione's. Harry had never used that term, so to hear it from his mouth was particularly foul. Professor Dumbledore's words haunted her, but she was still loathe to follow through on what she needed to do.
"Excuse me, Harry?" she spat, taking her Prefect tone with him.
He eyed her darkly as she rose from the ground and dusted herself off. His sneer became more pronounced. "You know I'm not Harry."
"Yes, you are."
Harry raised his wand once again, this time at Hermione. Before he could say anything, Ron grabbed his cane and brought it up, throwing off Harry's aim. The curse blasted a hole in the ceiling, sending plaster showering down upon the three of them. Hermione only moved to brush plaster from her face and hair. In a smooth movement that belied the averted curse, Harry brought down his arm and cast a curse on Ron that Hermione had never heard before. Ron shot backwards once again, crashing into the wall and sliding down, unconscious.
When Harry returned his attention to Hermione, he seemed surprised to see her wand in his face.
Tears on her cheeks, she whispered, "Don't make me do this, Harry."
He laughed and it sounded like a thousand voices layered atop one another. "I'd like to see you try."
"I love you, Harry," she whispered so softly that she wasn't sure she voiced the words. As she saw him begin to raise Voldemort's wand once again, she cast the first spell Professor Dumbledore had given her: "Lucifera Adsertum Contineo Phoenicis."
White light shot from her wand into Harry's face. He screamed, a sound as unearthly as his laughter. Her heart bled from the sound, but she couldn't turn away, wouldn't let herself turn away. For a moment, she wondered if she had to cast it again, but then a brilliant light rose from Harry's chest into the air. Her eyes were drawn to it almost instinctively, but she had to resist. She wasn't done.
Taking a deep breath, she cast the second spell: "Malefactoris Exstinctum."
Blackness exploded from Harry's body, beginning with his back and moving forward. When the entity was free of Harry's body and he fell to the ground, she cast the last spell at the shapeless mass: "Avada Kedavra." It burst into hundreds of small shards, each as brittle as glass, before evaporating entirely.
Voldemort was finally dead, but it had come at the cost of her husband's life.
The phoenix song she heard helped little as she sobbed against Harry's chest.
The breeze brushed her hair back almost like a caress as she and Ron stood in the graveyard. Hermione had buried Harry's body next to his parents in Godric's Hollow a week earlier. She tried not to feel heartsick at how little time the dash represented between birth and death dates.
The brilliantly emerald green phoenix on her shoulder helped her somewhat with that. The phoenix was Harry's soul, the result of the spell Hermione cast. It was perhaps a wicked irony that the existence of Harry's soul in a phoenix-the epitome of a Light creature-saved her from Azkaban and the Kiss. It was rightly pointed out that a phoenix could not be the familiar of a Dark witch. The conversation she had had with Dumbledore about Grindelwald's defeat was classified and couldn't be used as evidence in her defense to the Wizengamot at large, especially since her Pensieve memories were destroyed after viewing by the investigating Aurors.
The phoenix trilled softly, pushing its head against Hermione's cheek. Absently, she reached up to stroke its head. "Sssh, Leontes."
Leaning heavily on his cane beside her, Ron scoffed. "Leontes? That's what you decided? Why not a normal name?"
Hermione turned toward him, eyebrows raised. "And Hermione is normal?"
Ron frowned. "What does one have to do with the other?"
She stroked the phoenix's feathers again. "Both are from Shakespeare's A Winter's Tale. Leontes was Hermione's husband, but was so jealous of her friendship with Polixenes that it destroyed their marriage." Ron grunted, but said nothing. "At the end of the play, after trials and tribulations, Leontes and Hermione are reunited."
She was silent for a long time after that, merely staring unseeingly at Harry's grave. She was aware of Ron shifting restlessly next to her and knew he must be in some pain. He still wasn't completely recovered from that final confrontation with Harry on top of his permanent injuries.
The silence was broken when Ron asked plaintively, "Still, you couldn't just call him Harry?"
Hermione smiled though the smile was shadowed with sadness. Leontes launched himself into the air, a song trailing behind him.
"No, I couldn't call him Harry," she answered softly. "Leontes represents hope, Harry's light. It's a release for Harry, the freedom he never had, and a new start for me."
Ron turned to stare at her. "New start? You're going to date?"
"No, never again," she whispered in return, calling Leontes back to her with a gesture.
She and Ron left the cemetery in silence.
author's note 2: rough translations of the Latin are Lucifera Adsertum Contineo Phoenicis [declare light free, contain in a phoenix]; Malefactoris Exstinctum [destroy evil]